In May of 2018 the new GDPR (EU General Data Protection Regulation) will hit and many businesses will find their HR Departments having to take suitable action to ensure compliance.

How will HR Departments be affected?

GDPR will increase employer obligations with regard to staff, including informing them of their right to access their personal data as well as the ability to have it rectified or deleted. They will need to be told how long data about them will be stored and if any of that data is transferred to 3rd parties. And it is not only employers dealing with personal data of employees that will have to comply; HR service providers that process any data on behalf of employers will also need to take heed.

Large amounts of employee personal data is held and processed by HR departments and this can also include former employees or even those applying for jobs. This is often stored on paper records and also on computers with 3rd parties frequently getting involved in the processing i.e. payroll or advisory systems. Such things as medical information and details of any trade union membership can also be included.

So what challenges will HR departments face with regard to GDPR?

In order to comply with the new GDPR regulations, HR departments will need to take account of:

Employee consent

Being fully accountable

Respecting employee increased rights

They will need to be sure that they are balancing the provision of privacy with the HR tasks that need to be administered, particularly with regard to the following key areas:

Retention of data

Targeted information

Ability to show full transparency and accountability

Using data only for its intended purpose

Data security

Getting ready for GDPR

With the GDPR go-live data fast approaching, all businesses in the UK are readying themselves to ensure full compliance. Larger organisations may well find themselves having to create a new job role, putting the responsibility of complying with the GDPR regulation on the shoulders of one key person. Unless full compliance is made, companies will find themselves faced with substantial fines so the cost of adding an extra person to the payroll can be viewed as an essential expense.

All new GDPR Project Managers will have one main role and that will be to foresee and evaluate all threats to the company’s existing data management system and information governance processes. This will include storage and distribution as well as security of all data, whether held on paper or digitally.

Using document scanning to ensure compliance

At Pearl Scan we are working with business of all sizes and types, enabling them to prepare for GDPR by understanding exactly what full compliance means in practical terms. With a focus on paper files and documents, our job is to make sure that their storage and use does not break the rules of the GDPR regulations. Many businesses do not fully appreciate that threats can exist with regard to data on paper stored on shelves and in filing cabinets or even in PDF form digitally.

By making use of the full range of services we have on offer at Pearl Scan, companies can ensure complete GDPR compliance. They can do this by ensuring that all personal or sensitive information held on paper is made digital as soon as possible; this is where our document scanning services come into their own, offering a whole range of benefits as well as a rapid return on investment.

By outsourcing your document scanning to a specialist provider, you save time and money by not having to utilise your own staff; even if you have a scanning facility and a person that can be allocated to the task, it is usually the case that outsourcing to a professional document scanning service provider is the more sensible option. To up the costs of utilising a member of staff, setup time and the expense of gathering together all of the data and then indexing it once digitised and it is easy to see why so many companies rely on Pearl Scan.

How does document scanning ensure GDPR compliance?

There are many reasons why scanning documents helps ensure full compliance with GDPR regulations:

Data Retention – Data retention becomes far more manageable. In addition, if you put in place software such as Pearl Cloud or Halogen, your data retention rules can be set and processed automatically; all you need to do is set the guidelines. By having a clear Data Retention Policy in place for your company, should a data breach occur, at least you can show that you were taking all of the necessary precautions; without one, you leave yourself wide open to being hit with significant fines.

Security and Privacy – Leaving sensitive data on paper is not a good idea for many reasons; they are much easier to steal, copy or lose whilst when digitised, they can be stored and password protected. Especially delicate data can even be digitally encrypted. These are just a few of the reasons why taking the step towards document digitisation is an essential one in order to provide maximum security and privacy.

Data Search and Retrieval – Try finding an essential piece of information in a stack of paper documents and you will soon see why manual data search and retrieval is so much harder than with a digitised copy. If you apply this problem to Article 17 of the GDPR which states: “The data subject shall have the right to obtain from the controller the erasure of personal data concerning him or her without undue delay and the controller shall have the obligation to erase personal data without undue delay,” then you can see how this could become a huge problem if data is still on paper; a small task for a digitised data retention system would become an unruly one. You would need to find all files relating to that member of staff, pull out the relevant papers and then act on them. Doing the same job digitally would take just seconds, enabling you to comply with the GDPR stipulation of “without undue delay”. Think of the hold-ups that would occur trying to do this with paper documents and you can see that you would have an immediate problem. If paper files are stored off site, or in badly organised banker’s boxes in a basement, then this small task becomes even more unmanageable. The GDPR also stipulates the need for right of access, right to rectification and right to restriction of processing; when files are digitised, complying with this new regulation becomes possible.

Cost – It doesn’t take much of a calculation to see that the cost of processing paper data in accordance with the GDPR is far higher than dealing with digital data. Whilst the expense does not automatically ensure GDPR compliance, it goes a long way towards enabling your business to conform, thus avoiding fines and penalties.

Document scanning services for HR

We have been operating a secure document scanning centre for over 15 years and have worked with a vast array of organisations from every different industry sector. Having scanned just about every type of paper document imaginable, we have the skill, knowledge and expertise to process even the most sensitive of data, transforming it into easily manageable data files.

For this reason we are trusted by many of the UK’s most highly regarded organisations. Get in touch with us today and find out how we can help you achieve GDPR compliance by making use of our Document Scanning Service.

How document scanning can achieve efficient and cost-effective ways to stay GDPR compliant

As the UKs current Data Protection Act will be replaced by the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) in May 2018. Steps and procedures will have to be taken properly as the GDPR will come with a new set of data protection rules. Even though GDPR was designed to eliminate the likes of sever online hacks and cyber-attacks at vulnerable database data storage, paper documents are as important to the safeguard of your company’s data.

How will your manual document management systems be affected?

Paper files are much less private than digital documents, filing cabinets can be accessed by anyone and so you cannot be certain that customer data is not falling into the wrong hands. Not complying with the GDPR will result with fines of up to €20 million or 4% of your global revenue, which can soon add up.

Not complying with the GDPR will result with fines of up to €20 million or 4% of your global revenue, which can soon add up.

Paper documents are often duplicated making it difficult to know whether data has been destroyed completely or if copies are lying around. Document scanning can avoid this issue as it can ensure a single copy of your customers data which can be destroyed if necessary.

The majority of organisation across the UK will have paper documents that have been duplicated numerous times over the years and this is the problem that the organisations will have with paper documents. The solution is to convert your paper document to into digital files through a UK document scanning company. It will reduce the numerous copies you might have of same file and create a secure digital archive storage of documents.

The paper files can also be shredded, not only will it comply with GDPR but also freeing up masses of space in your office departments.

When a user requests for their data to be deleted from your data base. Deleting that one digital file can confidently reassure yourself that your company will be complying with GDPR and not have any copies of the that particular data related to the user.

As "Data Subject" is information related to a natural person the following types of paper documents will need to comply with GDPR:

HR record documents.

Client data

Medical files

Personal data

By scanning documents into an online system or opting for secure document storage your documents can be found easily and quickly to ensure that they legally compliant. A digital archive system can protect the data with secure passwords so that only authorised personnel can have access.

The idea is to give everyone the confidence that their data will be secure managed.

We have been and continue to be specialists in converting paper documents into digital data.

Expert advice can be given for the best solution on how you can comply with GDPR. Contact us today if you would like more information on scanning documents to digital files to comply with GDPR

What is GDPR?

The GDPR is giving the EU citizens increased data privacy from the 25th May 2018.
The European union has created GDPR to protect the EU citizens right and their data privacy.

GDPR is to Ensure that your data is your correct data, which will limit organisation in the EU from accessing your personal data. It doesn’t mean there's limits to what you can do with your data information. From the 25th of May, all data belonging to you is your personal data only. Personal data is all data about you including digital data that they can use to identify you.

This type of data can be collected from various ways such as;

This includes but not limited to email services, information and content on various online platforms including, insurance information, online behaviour, personal contact information and activity on your mobile devices etc.

Basically, everything there is to know about you and your digital life.

Your data should be handled lawfully, fairly and transparent to you. You will have to give consent for every form of your information to be processed. Appropriate safeguards must be put in place to protect your data from being misused and to protect your data privacy.

A data protection officer will oversee and monitor the data controller and processor to make sure your data is handled appropriately. If you reside in the EU, your personal data will be protected by the GDPR compliance.

Information about the data processing has to be given easily through understandable text outlining every single purpose of the data. Basically, terms and conditions will be restructured from legal text to readable text, making sure your consent can be withdrawn as easily as it was given. Furthermore, your right to data privacy is protected by default and by design

GDPR Compliance and Policy

The European parliament general data protection regulation comes into effect on the 25th MAY 2018. This will strengthen data protection for EU citizens and bring new changes to how businesses approach information security, data privacy and information governance.

The legislation is pivotal for businesses operating in Europe because GDPR sees introduction of mandatory security notifications which gives more freedom for citizens by how their personal data is used.

To achieve this, your company can take the following steps to start becoming GDPR compliant.

The one of the first steps you can take, make the employees aware GDPR and help them understand what it is and how it is going to affect your company.

To help make sure your company is using the private data correctly before the launch date. You can appoint a data officer.

Introducing a GDPR handbook can help employees even further.

You may have to audit your existing systems, procedures, contracts and supplier.

By having the correct procedures and good practice in place it can make it easier to detect, investigate and report breaches of security.

The market leading EU GDPR documentation toolkit contains a complete set of mandatory and supporting documentation templates that are easy to use.

How to demonstrate accountability under the GDPR

Keep up-to-date documentation of processing activities.

Appoint a data protection officer (DPO) if appropriate.

Implement measures to meet the principles of data protection by design and by default.

To ensure full compliance with the GDPR, you may also need to review the following documentation and policies;

Data protection policy

Training policy

Information security policy

DPIA procedure

Retention of records procedure

Subject access request form and procedure

Privacy procedure

International data transfer procedure

Data portability procedure

DPO job description

Complaints procedure

Audit checklist for compliance

Privacy notice

To find out more about how GDPR effects the way you store your paper documents, as well as how this may affect your scanned data stored in a digital format and steps that you need to take to have your documents / records scanned to GDPR compliance, please contact us for further details.